Casablanca

Casablanca was released in New York in November 1942, coinciding with the invasion of Allied troops into Africa near...Casablanca. The film was released in the rest of the country (including Los Angeles) in January, 1943, coinciding with a conference between Churchill and Roosevelt in...Casablanca. This timing meant the film, though often cited as a 1942 release, ended up as the 1943 Best Picture Oscar winner. No one thought that would happen when they were making it.

I was struck by the scholar A. L. Rowse's description of Hamlet as "the most wonderful play ever written." It's the word "wonderful" that I find interesting--not greatest, or most superb, or most brilliant, but wonderful. I think that's what I feel about Casablanca. It's not the greatest film ever made, but it's the one that I have more affection for than almost any other. How many times have I seen it? At least 20, perhaps more, and each time I am completely captivated by it, taken in by the world it invokes, lost in the romance it conveys, stunned by the ending. As Roger Ebert has said, Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made, but Casablanca is more loved.

For those who somehow have not seen it (and you should stop what you are doing and see it now) it is the story of a group of people in the Moroccan city that is termed unoccupied France, meaning that refugees from Europe gather there, hoping to get out to places like America. The best way is to catch the plane to neutral Lisbon, Portugal, but to do so you need permission. As the film begins, two German couriers are murdered, and they were carrying letters of transit signed by DeGaulle that can not be rescinded (forget that DeGaulle was the leader of Free France, not the controlling Vichy government, one of the nagging details that the film gets wrong). A weaselly criminal, played by Peter Lorre, has them, and entrusts them to the owner of the local hot spot, Rick, memorably played by Humphrey Bogart.

Bogart was still trying to shake the label of gangster heavy, which had been alleviated somewhat by The Maltese Falcon. Casablanca would propel him into the stratosphere (for my money, he's the greatest film star of all time). Rick tells everyone that he "sticks his neck out for nobody," and declares that he doesn't care who will win the war (he can't return to America). But of course this cynical man has a sentimental interior, which is brought out when he is reunited with his great love, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). She had left him unexpectedly when they were fleeing the German invasion of Paris, and he's been bitter about it ever since. Now he finds out she's married to a heroic resistance fighter (Paul Henreid).

The stuff between Bogart and Bergman is great, but it's balanced by the equally important character of Captain Renault, breezily played by Claude Rains. He is prefect of the police, and corrupt as the day as long, but filled with so much bonhomie that he is eminently lovable. The scenes between Bogart and Rains are some of the best dialogue you'll ever hear in a film, particularly when Rains asks Bogart how he came to Casablanca:

Rick: I came to Casablanca for the waters.

Renault: What waters? We're in the desert.

Rick: I was misinformed.

Eventually Rick comes to see that the "problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world," and does the noble thing, even though he says he's no good at being noble. To me, this is something of a metaphor for the perils of isolationism. Try as you might to cut yourself off from the problems of your fellow man, the good man will always be there to help, and if Rick is quintessentially an American, well, draw your own conclusions.

So why is Casablanca such a wonderful movie? Let us count the ways. The dialogue I think is perhaps the best reason. Six of its lines, more than any other picture, made the AFI list of greatest movie lines, with some of them making it into common lexicon, such as "Here's looking at you, kid," or "We'll always have Paris." And it has the greatest closing line in movie history, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." The story of how the film was pulled together on the fly, with the script being written as they went along, is well known. It was was based on an unproduced play called "Everybody Comes to Rick's."

The romance. Now, admittedly it's a bit schmaltzy. Bergman is shot in extremely flattering fashion (almost always of her left side, with gauzy filters and lighting that brings out a twinkle in her eye) but the feeling is there. The night that Rick sees her again and drunkenly implores Sam, his piano player, to play "As Time Goes By" is like a kick in the gut. And Bergman, who is asked to play a character who loves two men, pulls it off brilliantly.

Speaking of "As Times Goes By," there's the music. Max Steiner wrote the score, but "As Times Goes By" was an old Broadway show tune. He wanted to cut it, but since Bergman had cut her hair for her next role, the scenes couldn't be reshot. Thank goodness for her shorn locks, because, perhaps along with "Over the Rainbow" and "Singin' in the Rain," this song is one of the most indelibly resonant songs in cinema history. Then there's the Marseilles scene, one of the most stirring scenes I know. A group of German soldiers are singing "Watch on the Rhine," a German patriotic song. Henreid leads the house band in the French national anthem (Rick nods his approval) and the populace drown out the Nazis. Some have written this scene is too corny, but I disagree, and it gets a lump in my throat every time. Remember, when this film was made, France was still occupied by the Nazis.

Then there's the little things, like the minor characters, whether they are the employees of the Cafe, such as Carl the fussy headwaiter, or Sasha the gregarious Russian bartender, or Ferrari, the owner of Rick's rival club, The Blue Parrot, played by Sidney Greenstreet. Almost everything comes together in an alchemy that can't be bottled. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and the best thing he does is stay out of the way. Andrew Sarris wrote that Casablanca disproved the auteur theory. Curtiz was himself a refugee, a Hungarian by birth. He didn't have quite the full grasp on English language idioms when he accepted the Oscar for Best Director, after having been nominated a few times before without winning: "I am always the bridesmaid, never the mother."

Is it a perfect film? No--the character of Major Strasser, the evil Nazi, is on the cartoonish side, and conversely Henreid's resistance fighter is so heroic that he borders on the laughable--he even stoically forgives that his wife is in love with another man. There's also some egregiously awful rear-projection scenes. But this all easily forgiven.

Though Casablanca won the Oscar, it wasn't a huge success in box office terms. It wasn't until the 1950s, when revival theaters became popular, along with television airings, that cemented it's reputation as a classic (it is the most shown film in television history). It has since become the prime example of the mixture of the cineaste taste with that of popular appeal. I watched it on Saturday night, and I could watch it again right now.